Effect of youth unemployment cont.

1. Title - Creating mass employment for Ugandan youths.Team name- Liberty conservation and development association.Country – Uganda.Mentor – Mr. Odulla Joseph.

2. Youth unemployment refers to the situation where by factors of production are unengaged or not utilized in productive activities that can earn the youth income. The problem of youth unemployment is very real in my country Uganda. Youth in my country form the greatest percentage of the total population and millions of youths are unemployed in Uganda. The most affected youths are between the ages of 15-35 years, both male and female youths are affected. Some of my peers have left the county to look for jobs in other countries like Dubai, Iraq and other countries. The effect/ consequences of youth unemployment in Uganda are: • First and fore most youth unemployment is causing insecurity in the country. Many youths who are unemployed are easily convinced to join rebel activity and fight the government. This is not good because many people die in wars. • Unemployed youths are twice as likely as their employed counterparts to experience psychological problems such as depression, frustration, down cast and anxiety and this is not good. • In Uganda right now some youths who are unemployed join in doing social evils of homosexuals. When they join homosexuals they are given lots of money and this is very attractive to the unemployed youth. • There is high crime rate as a result of youth unemployment. For some youths to survive, they apply the jungle law “ survival for the fittest”. So the youths go in for stealing, high way robbery, theft by trick and many of them have been arrested and some killed. • Many of the unemployed youths in Uganda engage themselves in activities of gambling in order to earn a living. Some time they are arrested by the authorities. - A big percentage of the unemployed youths both female and male get infected with HIV/AIDS. This is so because money is used in exchange for sex and many youths have lost their life.

3. Effect of youth unemployment cont. • Youth unemployment has made many youths to enter early marriages and early marriages is not good. The poor unemployed youth get married, they produce children and both the parent and the children live in viscous cycle of poverty and it becomes very hard to break this cycle of poverty. Also people who marry early produce as many children as they can hence causing a problem of population increase which is a problem to the family, the nation and whole world. • Youth unemployment in my country has resulted into child abuse. A youth who is below 18 years is employed either as a house boy or house girl or in an industry and then paid very little amount of money say $50 per month. The causes of youth unemployment in Uganda are as follows: • Poor government policy and poor planning. The government of Uganda have very poor policy on taxation most especially on business enterprise. Government imposes very high taxes and this hinders the youths who would be interested to become business men and women and be employed in the business sector. Also on planning, the government on its budgetary planning, spends a high percentage on defense and this is so because there is no real democracy. The ruling government wants to be in power for more than 50 years. • Another cause of youth unemployment is corruption in both the government and private sector. Recently in Uganda billions of money have been lost in the hands of few government corrupt officials and this has caused some donor countries to stop giving aids/ help to Uganda. All the money that has got lost is meant to bring development in the Uganda and most notably to create many jobs in Uganda. The ruling government has stayed in power for long 36 years and this has caused a lot of nepotism. Only people who are from the tribe of the president have influence in employment sector. So most youths who are being employed in good jobs are those from the region where the president comes from. • Rapid population increase in Uganda is also causing youth unemployment . Hundreds of thousands of youths join the job market every year. The number of jobs being created every year is so small to absorb the big number of youths who are unemployed. For example some of my peers are secondary school teachers and they have stayed for more than ten years without being employed.

4. Causes of youth unemployment cont. • There is inability by the government to create jobs for the youths. The investors who come to Uganda most especially the Indians employ their fellow Indians. Also the institutions established in the country train job seekers not job creators. • In Uganda there is very low technology advancement most especially in computer and agricultural mechanization. Many youths do not have computer knowledge and this makes them to miss good jobs which need computer knowledge. Also many farmers in Uganda are still using a hand hoe for digging and this makes them to produce very little crops. so the use of a hand hoe for digging which is very hard makes the youth to fear to go in for employment in agricultural sector which employs 90% of the total population in Uganda. • In Uganda, there is high length of retirement age. Employed people remain in office for a long time up to the age of 75 years. The office is very good for them and they do not want to leave office for the young youths. A very good example is the president. This make the youths to have no chance of getting jobs and they remain unemployed for many years.

5. Our solution. Our workable solution which can help create jobs for many youths in Uganda both educated and non- educated is through agriculture. In Uganda agriculture is the back bone of Ugandans’ economy and it employs almost 90% of the total population which is about 30 million people. For us to create profitable jobs for the youths in Uganda, we are going to provide affordable agricultural mechanization/technology and improved planting materials to the youths. We need to acquire tractors which we will use to provide plough services to youths at a reduced and affordable cost. We will also provide high quality planting materials such as improved seeds of maize, ground nuts and soya beans which yields highly. For the youths who are not able to pay for our services and products, the project will provide the services/products to the youth but the youth have to contribute 30% of the produce to the project. The crops collected, the project will sold to raise income to cover the cost of providing the service/product. The project also plans to market the produce collectively from the farmers who will be benefiting from the project. The project will form Uganda youth cooperative produce society to help market the produce . This will help the youths to benefit and earn profitably form agriculture. The project will target about half a million unemployed youths in the first two years and within the next five years the project would have reached one million youths who are unemployed. We also have a vision of setting up a demonstration agricultural sites to help teach and promote practical skills in agriculture which can enable the youths to start up small agricultural enterprises. Practical skills in agriculture is very vital in creating jobs in agriculture . The demonstration sites will include poultry which will show the youths how to keep poultry for business. Both educated and non- educated youths will come to the site and learn how to keep poultry for business. Another demonstration site will be that of piggery and fish farming. This will help provide hand on practical skills on how to keep pigs and fish for business. Another demonstration site will be that of mush room growing, banana growing and pineapple growing. This will also help provide skill to the youths to be able to under take such and enterprise. The last demonstration will be that of zero grazing which will show the youths who to keep animals on zero grazing.

6. All the above demonstration sites will act as learning centers for the youths to learn new agricultural practices which can make them be employed in the agricultural sector. The project will select the interested youths and will register them as members of the association. Each member will be given a number to be used in the data base for the project. Depending on the resources we can have, we will have an office in every district of Uganda and this will help us reach all the unemployed youths in Uganda. Every youth who would like to have our services will have to apply for it and indicate the service/product he/she would like to have. The project will use radio stations in the country to inform the youths about the project. Some posters will also be used to inform the youths. The income generated from the project will be reinvested in the project to reach as many youths as possible so of the income generated will be given out as soft loans to youths to help them undertake agricultural project and in so doing the project will create massive employments for the youths in Uganda and it will help bring social and economic development of our nation Uganda.

7. Planned results and out come. This project is going to be the first of this kind in Uganda and it is a very innovative idea to help create jobs for the unemployed youths in Uganda. Our team will spend eight hours per day working on this project. The project expect to reach half a million unemployed youths in Uganda mostly in the rural areas of Uganda. The project will engage 100 volunteers for the initial start of the project. These volunteers will in future be employed in project when the project starts to generate a good income. The planned out come of this project will be massive job creation for the youths in Uganda in agricultural sector and this will bring economic and social transformation to youths of Uganda.